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Where did all the good fathers go?

Are there good fathers in the world?

There has to be. We will try and focus on the good fathers and their methods. What I don’t want is for this website to turn into a place where men are constantly being bashed.

If your ex doesn’t see his or her kids, won’t help out with them or watch them, that is unfortunate. We will not waste our time and energy bashing or shaming people for that here.

Are there terrible fathers out there? Sure. There are also terrible mothers. We will not be bashing mothers either. This is a website devoted to uplifting people, not tearing them down. If someone, whether male or female, doesn’t want to spend time with their kids that is their prerogative.

The jury is still out on whether it is better to have an uncaring, aloof, parent in the picture or not having one around at all. I will concede that this seems to happen more with men than women. I have an explanation for that.

I am not an anthropologist, but there is a theory I have investigated that seems to make sense. It’s called Evolution.

Whoa, is this going to be science class?

Not really, OK, maybe a bit. The “Bottleneck Theory” postulates that there was a time when the entire population of homo sapiens on the planet was somewhere between 2,000 and 10,000. My theory stems from this theory and it is this; men can have more than one child at a time. Meaning that if you are a woman, (discounting multiples of course), you can only have 1 baby at a time. You are wired to be emotionally attached to one baby because you are really the only person necessary for its survival.

When it comes down to pure survival men are superfluous. Yes they can help out and protect the mother and child, but they aren’t really necessary. So from an evolutionary standpoint men can kick rocks and never look back and the baby can survive. This isn’t true today but thousands of years ago, if the mother walked away from a child it would most likely perish.

Imagine a prehistoric village with 10 men and 100 women. It would actually make sense for the men to “sleep around” with multiple partners because if your species is near extinction then the best possible course for survival is actually man-whores. Their goal would be to keep all of the women pregnant pretty much all the time.

If a man gets too attached to one woman and one child, then he will lose the opportunity and urge to procreate with other women and, “Goodbye Humans”. I believe you can see an evolutionary shadow of this effect when you look at the differences with which men and women treat relationships.

What makes a “good father”?

I think where many men go wrong is that they think they have to be the, “Best-Dad-Ever”, to their kids. Then if he doesn’t match up to this superman image then he feels guilty and one way to deal with that guilt is to extricate himself from the situation. (Spoiler Alert!), Men have feelings too. If a man feels that his children hate him then he will not feel like spending time with them.

This is obviously a fallacy in the way men think. Think about this; there are men in the military that see their kids once every six months. There are men in prison that rarely see their kids, and have little or no physical contact with them. And yet I would bet you that these two groups of men are among some of the best fathers.

Why? Because they are aware of the most simple way you can show a child that you love them…

Spending time with them. Men in the military are constantly writing letters to their kids, they are Skyping with them, phone calls, emails, gifts, etc. Men in prison write letters to their kids, talk to them on the phone with every opportunity and when they see their kids it is a big deal. They dress up, they comb their hair, they wait by the door waiting to get to see them and to hold them.

I bet there is more feeling, emotion, and attention given during a one hour prison visit than some kids get in a month with a father that lives at home. It is an issue of complacency. We who are lucky enough to see our kids every day don’t spend much time with them. A typical day for me is my wife brings my daughter over to the bed so I can say goodbye in the morning. I go to work. I get home and spend maybe an hour or two with Sophia and then she goes to bed. I live with my daughter and on a typical day I see her for 2-3 hours.

Your action items are the following.

If your heart doesn’t weep every time you look at your children you are doing it wrong. Here is the “homework” assignment for every parent reading this. Some items will not apply to you but try and do all of the ones that do.

Spend one solid hour with your kids.

I don’t mean sit there on your cell phone while they play. I mean put your cell phone away, turn off the television and engage in an age appropriate activity with your children. EVERY DAY! If your children are far away or not immediately at your disposal see if you can setup Skype or a Google Hangout. I just bought a web-camera for my YouTube channel that does HD video and Audio. This is the next best thing to actually being there. Get one.

If you haven’t seen or talked to your children for some time…

Reach out to them in anyway you can. It can be a letter, a phone call, a visit, a text, a tweet, whatever. Just make contact. Start trying to rebuild your relationship today, it is never too late. Especially with Father’s Day just around the corner. Perfect time to get in touch.

Talk to the other parent if you are no longer together.

This one is going to be tough if you are not on good terms with your ex. Just make an attempt. Your ex may not be receptive and may even try to block your attempts at re-establishing your connection with your kids. Contrary to how it may seem to you, they most likely have the children’s best interests at heart. Or they could just be EVIL. 😛

You will notice that I kept gender out of this bullet list. In this instance it doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, reconnect with your kids. Why would you want to let negative emotions like anger, shame, or guilt rule your life when you can replace them with your children’s love.

Wow, this blog got really serious all of a sudden!

Yes, but this is important. If you are going to follow along with me for the next 18 years or so. Then you kinda need to have some kids around. How are we going to learn and implement the tips we get from this blog if we haven’t seen our kids in a long time? No matter how old your children are you should eventually be able to reconnect. It might take time to work through all the resentment, doubt, frustration, etc. But the payoff will be so damn sweet.

Now, I am not looking down from my pedestal saying, “You all need to be better with your kids!” I am typing this post in more of a, “Come on guys and gals, lets go get our kids”, sense. I am not being judgmental. I have an 19 year old son, and a 16 year old son that I haven’t even talked to in several years. They live in another state, and their mom is remarried and has two kids with her new husband. I will be following my own guidelines and will reach out to them myself.

I don’t want anyone to ever think that I am, “Holier Than Thou”. I have plenty of skeletons in my closet. I just don’t want to reveal them all at once. It will be a gradual unveiling of why I think I am qualified to at least coordinate this effort, if not lead it.

It is time we used the internet for good.

Instead of wondering what the Kardashians are up to or reading the latest gossip about X or Y. Lets use this global community to gather knowledge in one place. If you are the world’s greatest parent, we want you here. If you are the world’s worst parent, we want you even more. We will learn more from you then anyone else. Please share your stories of times when you got it right…or wrong.

I am currently working on a forum so we can have a much better discussion about the tough topics. It will have a wide range of subjects so we can talk more in depth without resorting to commenting back and forth.